Culture Flashcards
(64 cards)
How do cultures differ?
Through:
1) Nature of economy
2) Education level
3) Political system
4) Values
5) Wealth
6) Religion
7) Language
8) Technology
9) Traditions
10) Environment
What are Hofstede’s cultual dimensions?
After distributing a value questionnaire to 117000 managers of a large multi-national corporation in 40 different countries, Hofstede identified 4 important dimensions on which countries could be compared (1980):
1) Individualism-collectivism
2) Masculinity-femininity
3) Uncertainty avoidance
4) Power distance
5) Time Perspective (added in 1991 on the basis of an expanded sample of 50 countries)
What is described by Hofstede’s Individualism-collectivism dimension?
How closely people within a society are integrated into the group (e.g. how much do people value their own personal glory, relative to the success of the group).
What is described by Hofstede’s Masculinity-femininity dimension?
Valuing attributes that are either traditionally masculine (e.g. archiving, gaining, competition) or feminine (e.g. promoting inter-personal harmony, caring).
What is described by Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance dimension?
The degree to which people seek to reduce uncertainty and act inflexibly (e.g. rules & traditions should always be followed) or are tolerant of uncertain outcomes.
What is described by Hofstede’s power distance dimension?
The degree to which unequal power in institutions is accepted vs. the extend to which egalitarianism is endorsed. Can employees freely disagree with managers?
How did the Danish score on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions?
The danish scored low on power distance (.18), uncertainty avoidance (.23), and masculinity (.16), but scored high in individualism (.74).
Danes do not easily accept hierarchical (autocratic) relationship structures, they tend to be tolerant of uncertain outcomes, are caring and egalitarian, but determine their identity through their own choices and achievements.
How did the Japanese score on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions?
The Japanese scored high on uncertainty avoidance (.92) and masculinity (.74).
The Japanese follow rules and traditions, seek clear-cut outcomes, and dislike uncertainty. They work hard to archive and gain material success.
There are lots of ways in which we could conceive of cultural differences, but one important dimension is interdependence-independence. What are the differences?
Independent cultures such as USA and Germany emphasise autonomy, individual decisions making, and personal distinctiveness.
Interdependent cultures such as China and Turkey emphasise social connection, conformity, and relations with others.
What are ‘WEIRD’ cultures?
- W estern
- E ducated
- I ndustrialised
- R ich
- D emocratic
Most psychological research assumes that results conducted within Western populations will generalise to other cultures, I.e. that Western populations are ‘standard’ and that there is little cross-cultural variation. Paradigms are rarely tested in multiple cultures. In fact, Western populations might be particularly unusual.
Norms are formal or informal rules / expectations that determine the conduct of group members.
What is meant by ‘tight’ and ‘loose’ cultures?
Pelto (1968) asserted that tight cultures have strong homogeneous norms and little tolerance for deviant behaviour, whereas loose cultures have weaker norms and greater tolerance for deviant behaviour.
Harrington & Gelfand (2014) found that southern US States (Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas) had tighter cultural norms than western states (California, Oregon, Washington).
What is meant by honour cultures?
Honour cultures emphasise honour and social status, so particularly for males, and the role of aggression in protecting that honour.
In other societies, violence is seen as a disproportionate response to a personal or family insult (e.g. GB, Canada, Northern US states).
In individualistic societies, honour cultures often emphasise threats to an am individual’s sense of ‘respect’ or masculinity (e.g. Brazil, Chile, Southern US states).
In collectivist societies, honour cultures often emphasise threats to the honour of a family or a community (e.g. Pakistan, Turkey).
What did Cohen et al. study in 1996 in regards to honour cultures?
A confederate obstructed participants (US college students) in a narrow corridor and insulted them…
Males responded more aggressively than females.
Males from southern states were more affected - they were more likely to react with aggression than male people from northern states.
What did Vandello et al. study in 2009 regarding honour cultures?
Chilean and Canadian students listened to audiotapes of a husband describing a violent conflict with his wife.
Chileans rated the husband and his actions more positively than Canadians when the conflict was triggered by the wife apparently flirting with another man.
No cultural differences were seen when the conflict was unrelated to jealousy (wife had spent too much money).
What did Alexander Luria do in the 1920s and 1930s?
Luria interviewed peasants from Uzbekistan (at the time a pre-industrialised culture). He gave them syllogistic reasoning tasks in which a conclusion must be drawn from two propositions. Their answers revealed a reluctance to engage in hypothetical and abstract thought - they trusted only what they knew to be true through personal experience.
The answers were clearly not those sought by Luria, but were they unintelligent?
What did Glick do in 1975?
Glick studied the Kpelle people- a community of subsistence farmers from Liberia.
They were given various objects to sort in to categories (e.g. orange, knife, potato, hoe).
The Kpelle people tend to sort the items by function - pairing the orange with the knife, the potato with the hoe.
Only when prompted ‘how would a fool do it ?’ did the Kpelle sort the items into semantic categories (tools, food items) - the solution seemed most intelligent in the West.
What are Western approaches to intelligence?
Academic and cognitive skills, processing speed, generalisation and extrapolation, rule learning, completing tasks with the fewest steps, creative thinking.
How is Intelligence conceived by Chinese philosophers?
Benevolence and doing the right thing (Confucian perspective). Humility, freedom from conventional standards of judgement, a full knowledge of oneself (Taoist tradition).
What do African cultures often emphasise according to Sternberg & Kaufman (1998) ?
- Chewa adults in Zambia emphasise social responsibilities, cooperativeness and obedience, respect for elders.
- Kenyan parents emphasise responsible participation in family and social life.
- In Zimbabwe, the word intelligence (‘ngware’) actually means to be prudent and cautious in social relationships.
What were the results of Okagaki & Sternberg’s survey of parents in San Jose, California in 1993?
Parents of Mexican heritage tended to emphasise the importance of social-competence.
Anglo and Asian parents tended to emphasise the importance of cognitive skills.
What did Chen at al find in their survey of Chinese and Australian students in 1982?
Chinese students viewed memory for facts as important for intelligence.
Australian students viewed these skills as of only trivial importance.
What did Gill & Keats’ survey of Australian and Malay students in 1980 find?
Australian University students valued academic skills and the ability to adapt to new events as critical to intelligence.
Malay students valued practical skills as well as speed and creativity.
What are Raven’s matrices of 1936?
Some intelligence tests are described as ‘culture-fair’ (e.g. Raven’s matrices).
They seek to measure general intelligence (‘g’) in a way that is minimally affected by general knowledge, vocabulary, experience of formal testing.
While the scores on these tests may be less affected by socio-economic status and formal education than other IQ tests, they still measure ‘intelligence’ as conceived by Western cultures.
How can the spatial relationship between objects be described?
The spatial relationship between objects can be described in different ways, using different frames of reference (FoRs).
